


Cold Waters (are not made for swimming)

by Rainbow_Child



Category: Chicago Med, Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Protective Older Brothers, a bit of a case fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21650329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbow_Child/pseuds/Rainbow_Child
Summary: Platt picks up the phone and dials an extension."Hank, it's Trudy. Listen, is Halstead still on duty?" She listens for a second, then shakes her head. "Has he checked in at all since he left?" Another pause, then her eyes fixed on Will, and suddenly he can't help the leaden ball of worry forming in his stomach. Something is not right here. "Because I have his brother here who says Halstead is missing."It's no big deal, really. Jay's only checking out a lead on a case the team is stuck on. It's probably not going to amount to anything, and at the most it's going to make him a little late to pizza and hockey night with his brother.He's even nice enough to leave Will a message to let him know.Two hours later, Jay still hasn't shown up, he's not answering his phone, and Will has the bad feeling that it's a race against the clock to find his brother in time, and that they're already running behind.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first foray into this fandom. I'm still working my way through the three Chicago shows, and while I know the rough outline of what's going to happen to most of the characters, I'm nowhere near caught up.  
Which is also why neither Hailey nor Erin show up in this story, because I really don't feel like I have a handle on either of them yet, and also didn't want to tread into relationship territory as this is more of a brother-fic, anyway. So I just left them both out for now without making up an explanation.  
I might have missed some character arcs, and I couldn't possibly say when this fic takes place in canon. It's a vague timeline, I'm sorry, but I just wanted to write about worried and competent Will saving the day. So there's that.  
If any characters appear who never appeared at the same time on the shows, that's on me.  
Also, most of my knowledge of Chicago comes from Wikipedia and Google Maps. So...all mistakes on that front are mine, too.  
And if that long rant hasn't put you off yet, I hope you enjoy.

Jay knew this was a monumentally bad idea. He _knew_.

But this whole case is so screwed up, he's ready and willing to cling to any straw available. If that straw comes in the shape of one of his CIs referring him to a guy who gives him a tip about their missing suspect, Jay is damn well gonna grasp it. Even if it happens while he's already on his way home at the end of his shift. The case is frustrating enough that he's willing to postpone pizza and beer on his couch for a little while. Will will understand, and they still have plenty of time before the game starts, after all.

It'll be worth if if this tip finally gets their case moving again after almost a week of almost no progress. They have four dead wanna be drug dealers. Nothing more than kids, actually, who got a bit too cocky for their own good after they stumbled across a gang stash-house. Taking two kilos of heroin from one of the gangs was a choice they paid for dearly, and so far Intelligence has been unable to crack this case. They have a pretty solid suspect for the guy who called the hit on the four teens but no evidence to tie him to it. Which is why they really need to find the shooter, because he's really the one person who can tie their main suspect to the murders.

Of course Jay is going to follow up on his CI's info, even if technically he's off the clock already.

Of course he's going to check it out. Of fucking course.

He only wanted to check and see if there was anything to the tip because he doesn't know if this particular source is trustworthy. It was such a simple plan: check it out, and if there's something to it, call in reinforcements. A quick walk around the perimeter, check to see if anyone might be hiding out in the abandoned warehouse, then he can radio for further units if needed. A great plan, but Jay was barely out of the car when the first shot whizzed past him and the suspect was running away.

A great fucking plan that held up for barely a few moments, and now Jay is running after the guy who shot at him, trying not to lose him in this maze of empty buildings and passageways, with no way to stop and call for help. There isn't even a way for him to tell if this really is the guy who shot those kids. Of course, innocent people rarely hide out in abandoned warehouses and shoot at the first person to approach them, but that doesn't matter so much now, anyway. The asshole shot at him, Jay can figure out the details of why as soon as he has the fucker in custody.

The icy February air is stinging in his lungs as he runs along the deserted concrete. The chase started near the Water Reclamation Plant in Riverside, but by now Jay is sure they're much farther north than that. Probably near the Grain Silos. A deserted industrial area in the middle of the night, just fucking brilliant. This whole thing has been such a monumentally bad idea. Voight is going to tear him a new one for it as soon as he finds out, and rightfully so.

Jay stops as he reaches a corner of the building beside him. There is only one way his suspect can have gone, he must have turned a right here, but Jay can't see what lies behind the edge of the building. He can no longer hear the sound of footsteps running away from him, either. Which means that either his suspect has gotten away, or...well, or he's lying in wait right around the corner. Better safe than sorry. Gun held in front of him, Jay goes low and rounds the corner.

Nothing.

Just more empty abandoned buildings and walkways. The asshole has gotten away. Damn it all to hell.

He should have known it was a mistake the moment he straightens up from his crouch. He should have felt it, should have listened to his gut instincts that told him that the guy cannot simply have vanished out of a full run like that, but for just a second, Jay allows his frustration to take over and doesn't think. He takes a few steps into the direction the suspect has vanished into, lowering his weapon to his side.

The punch throws him almost off his feet. He stumbles back, and a split second later he hears the rapport cut through the night and he understands. It hasn't been a punch. It has been a shot, and with the thought comes the pain, sharp and blinding up his left arm. He stumbles backwards, trying to balance the impact, but suddenly the ground beneath his feet is gone and he's falling.

He tries to twist, to brace for the pain of impact, expecting hard ground and pain. Instead, for a second that stretches like an eternity there's nothing but empty air, then the ground rushes over him in a splash and suddenly Jay can't breathe. It feels like he's being dumped in ice, thousands of tiny needles against his skin, and an iron band wrapping around his chest, making him unable to breathe. Up is down and down is up, his whole body is on fire, and for a second Jay wants to open his mouth and just scream. Some unconscious sense of self-preservation must be holding him back, and a moment later his head breaches the surface and he can finally breathe again.

Coughing. Spluttering. Wheezing. It's not proper breathing, it's wet and painful, but it fills his lungs with oxygen, and for a few seconds, that's enough.

He's so fucking cold. Already, he can feel his arms and legs go numb, and Jay's whole thought process narrows down to a few simple thoughts.

Water. He's in the water. Freezing water. It's February. He needs to get out of here. Fast, or he's dead.

Jay turns in a slow circle, his feet kicking sluggishly beneath him. It's dark, too dark to make out any details, but he guesses he has fallen into the water somewhere near the Grain Silos. There's no bank here where he can easily drag himself out. Rather, the water is enclosed by docks wherever he looks, and the edge is about ten feet above his head. He needs to get to the wall, there has to be something like a ladder somewhere.

Jay is a good swimmer, but he can barely feel his arms as he turns towards the edge of the water. He knows his legs are still kicking because he's moving forward, but he's just so incredibly cold, he can't feel it anymore. It feels like his chest can't expand to get in enough air, and everything is trying to pull him under. Especially his jacket. Thick downs are great against the cold Chicago winter air, but right now those downs are getting soaked, trying to pull him down with pounds of water that he can ill afford to drag around.

It takes some maneuvering, and twice he slips beneath the surface only to come up coughing and spluttering, but finally he manages to undo the zipper with numb fingers and shrug out of the jacket. It feels like a weight is lifted, and getting towards the wall of the dock feels a little easier. At least for a few moments. He's so cold, and his energy is draining more quickly than he has ever experienced before. It feels like an eternity until his hand finally brushes against something solid.

He feels along the wall. He can't tell if he's touching steel or concrete because it's too dark to see and his hand is too numb to feel it, but what he can feel is that the wall is just as icy as the water, and it's slippery with algae. There's no way he can scale it on his own.

A ladder.

He needs to find a ladder.

He's shivering violently, his jaw is shaking so bad that his teeth are clacking together painfully, and all he wants is to just take a break. Just a little breather, until his limbs slip back under his control. But he knows, in some distant part of his brain that's still capable of rational thought, that he can't stop. He only has little time left to get out of the water and call for help.

Which he won't be able to do, because his phone is in his jacket pocket, on the bottom of Lake Calumet.

Fuck. The one good thing about this is that the icy water is slowing down the bleeding from the wound in his arm. He's probably going to get the mother of all infections from this dirty, murky water, but at least he's not going to bleed out immediately. Small victories and all that.

His fingers are completely numb by now, so he almost misses when they brush against something that's not a concrete wall. A slick steel bar. A horizontal steel bar.

A ladder.

A sob tears from deep in his chest as he quickly hooks his uninjured arm around the rung. Deep breaths. A few deep breaths to gather what little strength he has left, then he needs to pull himself up. He can only hope that the ladder reaches all the way to the top, and that the rungs aren't broken.

His feet find purchase, and with tremendous effort, Jay takes one step up and starts pulling himself out of the water. The first rung is relatively easy, but as soon as more of his upper body is out of the water, the muscles in Jay's arms start to tremble with the effort of holding himself up. His hands are entirely numb, he can't feel the rung beneath his fingers let alone make sure that he is gripping it tight enough to keep from falling. His left arm is barely under his control anyway, and he definitely doesn't trust it to hold his body weight. In the end, he hooks his good elbow over the rung awkwardly, then puts one foot up on the next rung and heaves himself up.

It's excruciating. Inch by inch, he drags himself from the water, but his body feels too heavy to ever reach the top. Had he still any feeling in his legs left, his thighs would be burning from the strain, and the metal rungs are biting into his arm, but he tries to push past it. Inch by inch. He only needs to get up, just a few more feet. One more rung, and then another. Maybe one more. And another.

It's a bit easier once his whole body is out of the water. He no longer feels like it's trying to suck him back in, dragging him into a cold and wet grave where nobody will ever find him, but he needs to be extra careful. If he loses his footing now, if he falls in again, Jay knows with a horrible clarity that he's going to make it up again. Hell, he's not so sure he's going to be able to make it on this attempt, he definitely doesn't have any strength left for a second.

Another rung.

  
Another rung, and when he reaches for the next one, this time his hand grasps at nothing. An edge. Rough concrete. The top. No more rungs means he has reached the top. A sound that's somewhere between a sob and a laugh tears free as he heaves his upper body over the edge and for a second simply lies there, still half suspended over the dark water, panting hard and his whole body shaking. He has made it.

Distantly, he knows that the shooter might still be around somewhere, but there's nothing he can do against that now. Jay has no idea where his gun is. He might have lost it when he got shot, or during the fall, or in the water. Either way, he's defenseless. If the shooter is still around, Jay is dead. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

A weak laugh tears from his throat and quickly turns into a cough. Fingers scrabbling against the rough concrete, Jay gives himself a second or two to try and breathe against the iron band around his chest, then he drags his legs up, as well. He rolls away from the edge.

Just get away from the edge, he tells himself.

He needs to get away from the edge, because if he only makes one misstep and falls into the water again, he's dead. He tries to get up on all fours, desperate to cough up the water he can still taste against the back of his throat. He has no idea how much of the disgusting water he has swallowed, but there's a murky taste clinging to his tongue. It tastes like decay, like all the dead things that are probably floating just beneath the surface down there.

Jay's stomach heaves, and he barely has the strength left to turn his head sideways before he painfully throws up a thin trickle of lake water and bile.

He needs to keep moving.

He needs to get out of here.

Without his phone, he can't call for help until he reaches his car, and that's a long walk away. At the very least, he needs to make it to a well-lit area where he'll stand a chance that someone driving by might see him and call for help. Chances of that are slim, though. There aren't many passer-bys in this part of town at night. At least not the kind that will be willing to help out a cop.

Still, he needs to get going. He needs to tie something around the wound in his arm and then he needs to get moving. He'll get warm again as soon as he starts moving. Already, the shivering has stopped, so that's was a good sign, right? He just needs to get to his feet, then everything else will fall into place.

With an almost superhuman effort, Jay manages to turn himself around and heave himself into a half-upright position. Sitting is already halfway to standing up, after all. He's getting there. Slow and steady. He'll sit here for a second, then he'll get up. Then he'll go back to his car and call for help. Voight will be pissed, but he'll send help. Will will be pissed that he's late, but he'll understand. Will always does. Jay only has to get up, then everything will be all right.

He feels a solid wall behind him, and Jay allows himself to lean back with a sigh. Just for a second. He'll stay here for just a second, then he'll drag himself upright and go for help.

He needs to call Voight.

Just for a second.

His eyes are closing, but he'll open them back up again in just a second.

Will is going to be so pissed.

Just...for a second.

He's just resting his eyes.

Then, darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos. Here's the next chapter, in which Will is going to make his appearance. Hope you all enjoy!

_"Will, hey. Listen, I'm going to be a little late. I'm sorry, but there's a lead I need to run down first. It's just a quick drive by, I promise it's not going to take more than half an hour, forty minutes tops. I'll definitely make it in time for the game, I just thought I'd give you a heads up. Go ahead and order pizza without me, and there better not be any mushrooms on it or there'll be hell to pay. See you in a bit."_

Will is officially pissed as he listens to his brother's voicemail message again. It doesn't provide any more clues than it did the previous times, but it definitely makes his anger rise. It's been over two hours since Jay left that message, and so far he hasn't shown up. Will ordered the pizza – with extra mushrooms, because screw what Jay said – it was delivered and has gone entirely cold in the meantime while Will waited like a scorned housewife for his brother to make an appearance.

Puck-drop was over an hour ago, too. By now the game is well into the second period, the Blackhawks are down 1-4 against the Flyers, and Will is absolutely fed up.

He gets it. He gets that Jay's job has no fixed hours, and that things might get in the way of personal plans at a moment's notice. Hell, Will has canceled on plans almost as often as his brother did in the past because of work, so he doesn't get to pass any judgment. No, what really pisses him off is that Jay didn't think it necessary to let him know that he wasn't going to be able to make it after all. He's not talking about a gilded letter of apology, but would a quick text really have been too much to ask? Had he known, Will could have changed his own plans for the night. He could have gone out, maybe for a few beers at _Molly's_, with the game on in the background and more than a cold pizza with too many mushrooms on it to keep him company while he watched it. But since Jay never bothered to cancel, Will sat home like an idiot, waiting for the sound of his brother's key in the lock.

Will thinks he's righteously pissed, which is why he eventually grabbed his phone and jacket and got into his car to give his brother a piece of his mind. The game was going downhill anyway, it's not like there was a reason to keep watching the Blackhawks lose. And now he's parked in front of the precinct, listening to Jay's voicemail one more time to make sure he didn't miss anything that's going to make him look like an idiot if he goes into the station now.

But there's nothing there. Jay said he'd be half an hour late, by now he's well over two hours late, and the only explanation is that he got tied up at work and forgot that he left Will waiting. He's not answering his phone, either, and instead lets it go straight to voicemail, so Will is going to go in there and remind his little brother that being busy at work is no excuse for being an asshole. And once he's done with that, he's going to go to _Molly's_ for a beer or two to make the third period of the game more bearable.

It's a good plan.

Will shivers as he gets out of the car and locks it. It might not have snowed in a while, but winter still has Chicago tightly in its clutches and the temperature really drops at night. He pulls his jacket more tightly around himself and quickly hurries towards the precinct entrance, desperate to get back into the warmth. He was only out for half a minute, but still his fingers are tingling as he pushes open the doors and approaches the front desk.

He really didn't think this whole plan through though.

That realization comes as he finds himself face to face with none other than Sergeant Platt. Just great. They don't really have much interaction since Will hardly ever visits the precinct, but ever since the hickey incident during their first meeting Will has been cautious around her. He's pretty sure that one day, the other shoe for his little joke is going to drop. He once asked Jay if there was any chance that Platt has forgotten about the little incident, and the look his brother had given him had been a mixture of amusement and sheer terror, and in itself had been answer enough. Apparently, Platt isn't a woman who forgets easily.

"Doctor Halstead." There's nothing in her voice giving away what she's thinking, which makes Will even more cautious as he approaches her desk.

"Sergeant Platt, good evening. It's a pleasure."

"I'm sure it is. What brings you to hour hallowed halls tonight?"

Will shrugs, trying to rub the warmth back into his fingers. "I need to talk to my brother, and he doesn't answer his phone. Do you think you could call him down?"

Platt frowns. "Your brother left hours ago. I distinctly remember because I needed him to countersign some requisition forms, but then his phone rang and apparently that was more important because he left."

That might have been the lead Jay said he had to follow up on. "Well, maybe he came back in the meantime?"

"And he what, flew up to the second floor and climbed in through the window? Because I can tell you that he definitely did not come back in through those doors. If he did, I'd have the signatures I need by now, and as you can see", she starts waving a form on a clipboard around haphazardly, "I'm still without them. Which by the way does not make my life any easier."

"Maybe you didn't see him come back?"

The look Platt gives him is withering. "Are you saying that I'm not paying proper attention to my job?"

Will raises his hands in a placating manner. "What I'm saying is that it's not like my brother to vanish and not answer his phone, not when he's off duty. Could you call up and ask if he checked in with them? Because five minutes ago I was pissed off at him for standing me up, but if nobody has heard from him since he left here, I think it might be time to get worried."

Platt looks at him for a few moments, then she picks up the phone and dials an extension.

"Hank, it's Trudy. Listen, is Halstead still on duty?" She listens for a second, then shakes her head. "Has he checked in at all since he left?" Another pause, then her eyes fix on Will, and suddenly he can't help the leaden ball of worry forming in his stomach. Something is not right here. "Because I have his brother here who says Halstead is missing."

She nods at whatever the reply is, then puts down the receiver and turns towards the staircase.

"Follow me."

Will does, getting more anxious as they climb the stairs and through the gate Platt buzzes open for them. Surely if anyone knew where his brother is, they would have just told him. Worst case scenario, they would have told him that they know but can't tell him. So what is going on here? What has Jay gotten himself into?

The Intelligence offices are almost empty. Adam Ruzek is sitting at his desk, clicking through what looks like a list of dense words on his computer screen with the frustrated expression of a man who is looking for the thing he missed the first few times he ran through something. All other spots are empty, but the lights are still on in Voight's office and the man himself is standing in the open doorway, watching them as they approach.

"Evening, Doc. You're looking for your brother?"

Voight does not seem worried, but Will does not feel calmed by that at all. He's never been great at reading the Sergeant, and he's fairly sure that there's more going on beneath the surface than his calm demeanor shows. There always is, and mostly it's things Will is sure he doesn't particularly want to know in great detail.

"Yes. He was supposed to show up at my place well over two hours ago but didn't, and his phone goes straight to voicemail. I was thinking that maybe he got caught up with something here at work."

Voight shakes his head. "No, we pretty much wrapped up for the day by the time he left. Ruzek's still on some paperwork, but nothing came in over the past hours that would have kept him here. I was about to leave, as well. Your brother is definitely off duty."

This does not make any sense at all. "Sergeant Platt said he got a call when he left."

"If he did, it's nothing that we know of." Adam has stopped his work on the computer and is stepping around, leaning against Jay's desk and crossing his arms in front of his chest. "No offense, Will, but maybe something else came in between. Maybe he's with a girl, and that's what that call was about."

Will shakes his head. "No, I don't think that's it. He left me this, it must have been after he left the station."

He pulls out his phone and pulls up his brother's voicemail message. Voight and Adam lean in closer, listening attentively as Jay's voice comes out of the speaker. It's the third or fourth time Will has listened to this message over the past hour, and it sounds more and more ominous every time. What lead did Jay want to follow up on? Where did he go? Why didn't he tell anyone about it? Not necessarily Will, though he's still pissed about the whole thing where Jay stood him up. But why didn't he tell his team? Aren't they supposed to always have backup when they go somewhere?

As soon as the message is done playing, Adam goes back to his desk, picking up his phone and starting to type at the same time. Will turns towards Voight.

"Listen, I agree that there could be an innocent explanation and Jay simply stood me up. But this voicemail says that he wanted to check something out for the case, and now he's two hours overdue, I can't reach him and apparently neither of you have any idea where he is, either. I'm getting worried, Sergeant."

Voight nods and turns towards Adam. "Ruzek?"

The other man looks up from his computer screen. "Techs are looking up the location of Jay's car and phone, they'll let me know in a moment. It looks like he spoke to a number that's registered to one of his CIs earlier today. No activity on his phone in the past hours. Last call he made today is the one to Will, before that he received a call from an unknown number. There's nothing we have in the system on it, but I'll let the techs run it, see what they come up with."

It should be scary how much information the police have at their disposal with the click of a few buttons. Like apparently his own phone number and name is saved somewhere in the bowels of the CPD's files as a contact to his brother. That is a scary thought, but for once Will is glad about it rather than paranoid. Anything that'll help them find Jay as quickly as possible, discussions about the surveillance state can wait another day. A few moments later, Adam's desk phone rings, and he immediately picks it up. "Yeah?" He listens for a moment, writes something down on a pad with a nod. "Send me the address, will you? Thanks."

When he looks up, Will knows that this is not going to be good news.

"He went to Riverdale, near the Water Reclamation Plant. His car hasn't moved in ninety minutes. Not many cell towers in the area so they can't get a proper fix, but his phone pinged off a tower to the north of the plant, near the lake, a little while after he parked the car. It hasn't connected to any tower since. Techs are sending me what they have."

He is putting on his jacket as he speaks, and beside him Voight is getting ready to go, as well. Will is not going to be left behind, though, and he should probably make that clear.

"I'm coming with."

"Like hell you are." Voight's voice leaves no room for argument, but Will is used to standing his ground with belligerent patients. He's not going to back down to a belligerent sergeant, not when it's about his brother.

"I'm either coming with you, or I'm coming after you now that I know where you're going. This is my brother, Sergeant. He might need help."

He knows that his threat is empty, and that Voight knows that, as well. Voight could just as well cuff him to a desk here, or leave him to Sergeant Platt's mercy, or put him in lockup for the rest of the night if he truly doesn't want Will to come along. The possibilities to stop him are pretty much endless. But he doesn't let that thought discourage him and instead keeps staring straight at Voight.

Voight stares right back for a few seconds longer than is comfortable, then he nods. "All right. But you do as you're told. If Jay's in trouble, there might be a threat there that needs to be dealt with first. We won't have the time to look after both of you."

Will nods and the three of them start to hurry down the stairs. "I understand."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a lot for reading, I hope you enjoyed. The next chapter should be up soon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks for all the comments and the kudos. I really means a lot to me.  
Here you go with the next chapter, I hope you enjoy. One disclaimer: I'm not a doctor. Really not. I googled a lot, and I tried my best to make it sound somewhat intelligent, but I'm not a doctor. So all mistakes are mine, and I hope they're not too severe.

As a child, Will always dreamed of driving in a police car with the lights flashing and the sirens on. Like a million other kids before him and after him, he thought it would be heroic and exhilarating. The dream lost most of its appeal once he grew out of elementary school age, though, and even once his little brother became a cop there never really was that temptation to see if it was really going to be as awesome as five year old Will Halstead imagined it to be. Truth be told, other than being in his brother's car, tonight is the first time Will ever finds himself in something that could fit under the umbrella of being called a police car, and it's not really anything like he imagined it to be.

There's no sirens, but Voight's car is flashing the lights as the Sergeant weaves in and out of the sparse late-night traffic at breakneck speed. In the backseat though, all Will can think of is that it might not be enough, that they might be too late because he waited for too long. Ninety minutes. Jay's car has been parked for ninety minutes by the time they left the precinct. It doesn't take ninety minutes to quickly check up on something. A lot can happen in ninety minutes.

Something happened to his brother, and now they might be too late because Will waited for too long before he raised the alarm. Will feels sick, and it's not because of the way Voight is driving. In the passenger seat, Adam is talking quietly into the phone, seemingly unperturbed by his boss' haphazard driving style. Will's not listening to what the other man is saying, but after a while he pockets his phone with a sigh.

"Burgess and Atwater are on their way. They're going to check out Jay's car and will check in as soon as they're there."

"Good. We're going to check out the area where Jay's phone last connected to a cell tower. It's still a lot of ground to cover."

Will notices the odd use of Jay's given name, but he has no idea if Voight is doing it on purpose due to their shared last name, or if it's a sign that the other man is starting to get worried, too. Will's leg is bouncing up and down as Voight pulls the car into a side street that's just as empty and desolate as the roads they've been driving through for the past minutes. Seeing it with his own eyes, Will is sure now that something has happened to Jay. He can simply see no other reason why his brother would be in this area for well over two hours now.

"All right, this is it. His phone puts his last known location somewhere around here. We're going to split up to cover more ground, stay in touch over the radio. Doc, you're with me."

It's not a request, and Will knows better than to insist that they'd be able to cover more ground if they split up into three search parties. He has the feeling he'll end up locked up in the car if he tries to argue his case. So he keeps his mouth shut and gets out of the car. Voight has his gun in his hand and gestures for Will to come with him.

"Ruzek, you take that side," he gestures down a row of abandoned warehouses to their right. "Will and I will head straight ahead. You see anything, you radio it in, got it?"

Adam nods and hurries off in a jog. Voight hands Will a flashlight, and holds Will's wrist in a vice-like grip as he reaches for it.

"Ground rules, Halstead. You stay behind me. You don't go off on your own or make any detours without my explicit say so. You don't go any place I haven't cleared first, do I make myself clear?"

Will nods, and they're off. It's dark, the streetlights few and far in between around here, and there's a lot of ground to cover. It only takes Will a few moments to realize that this is going to be a cursory search at best. They can't check inside every building, and even checking to see if any of the doors they're passing are unlocked would be too much. They're looking for obvious disturbances, signs that someone came through recently, and Will realizes with a sick feeling in his stomach that if they're going to find Jay, it's going to come down to luck. They could be running past a building Jay's in without ever knowing, and the mere thought tightens something in Will's chest painfully.

Still, he tries to keep up with Voight, shining his flashlight into every passageway and behind every dumpster and container they pass by. He tries to catch a glimpse into any windows that aren't blind or cracked, but it feels like way too little. Will only hopes that Voight is keeping track of where they are, because he lost all sense of orientation after the first few turns. He can only hope that they don't keep searching the same alleys and warehouses over and over again because to him, they all look the same in the sparse lighting.

The only sounds Will can hear is their steps and the sound of his own ragged breathing, so he almost jumps when suddenly Voight's radio jumps to life.

"Sergeant Voight?"

It's Burgess' voice. Voight stops and thumbs the radio. "Go for Voight."

"Atwater and I found Jay's car. It's parked but unlocked, and the engine is cold. It's been here a while."

"Any sign of Halstead?"

"No." There's a second of silence before she continues. "Voight, there's a bullet hole in the hood and one of the headlights is blown out. Someone was shooting at it."

Something in Will's chest clenches painfully, and he notices that his hand is shaking. There's only a limited number of reasons why Jay would not get into contact with anyone after being shot at, and none of them are good. Will doesn't really want to contemplate any of them, but he's been working in a Chicago ED for too long to not conjure up grisly images of the blood and gore he's seen come in through the doors there that have been caused by gunfire. He never wants to see his brother on one of those gurneys.

"All right, call in reinforcements to secure the scene and help with the search. We now officially have a missing police officer. If you're sure that Halstead is not near the car, I want you and Atwater to come to our position and help with the search. We have a lot of ground to cover."

"Roger that. We'll do one more sweep of the perimeter and then join you."

Before Will knows it, they're moving again, though his legs feel a lot shakier than they did just a minute ago. He no longer knows what to think about this whole situation, but one thing he knows with increasing clarity – they need to find Jay, and fast. He doesn't know why, but deep down he's sure that his brother is running out of time.

Suddenly, there's steps in the distance, and Voight gestures for Will to stay back. He rounds the next corner with his gun raised, ready to fire, but before Will even has the time to process what is happening, the Sergeant lowers his weapon again.

"Sarge, I got something here!"

It's Adam's voice, and Will's heart starts pounding so hard in his chest that it drowns out all other noise. He's running, feet pounding the pavement towards where Adam is crouched over something on the ground. He straightens up as Will and Voight approach and points towards what he was looking at.

"Jay's gun. And there's blood."

There's indeed a gun lying on the ground, though Will has absolutely no idea if it's Jay's or not. To him, they all look the same. He's much more worried by the blood on the ground a few feet away. It's not much, at least not enough to be a sign of someone bleeding out, but any amount of blood in the vicinity of where his brother vanished is enough to turn Will's stomach. Especially since the blood is right at the edge of what he only now realizes is a dock, a sheer drop with dark water a few feet below.

Please god, don't let Jay be in that water. Don't let him be floating down there somewhere.

Voight is examining the blood spatter on the ground, but Adam is already moving again. A container is blocking Will's view ahead, but Adam is running full speed towards something behind it.

"Voight, Will! Over here!"

Will starts running again, and as he approaches the container, he sees a pair of legs behind it.

Jay. Please let it be Jay. Please let him be alive.

Adam slides to a stop and drops to his knees, but Will still isn't close enough to see any details.

"It's Jay! I got him!"

Please let him be alive. Please, just let him be alive.

"We need an ambulance!"

Will is finally close enough to see his brother. Jay is leaning up against against the side of a derelict building, just a few feet away from the water's edge. His legs are stretched out in front of him, he's slumped slightly forward, arms hanging limply at his sides, and in the dim light of the nearest street light, his skin is deathly pale and his lips have a horrible blue-ish tinge. He looks...Will doesn't dare to finish that thought. Jay has to be alive.

His clothes are soaked, and there's a wet trail from the edge of the water to where he's slumped down. Jay was in the water. It's about thirty degrees out, and Jay has been in the water and has been sitting out here in the icy February air for who knows how long. This is really, really bad.

Adam is kneeling beside Jay, fingers pressed against his throat. He takes his hand away, then presses his fingers against Jay's throat again.

"I can't find a pulse!"

No. No, no, no. From one second to the next, Will's legs feel too weak to support his body, but then he sees how Adam is trying to move Jay into a lying position, and suddenly he can't move fast enough.

"Stop! Don't move him!"

Adam is startled enough to stop what he was about to do, and Will drops to his knees beside Jay. There's steps behind him and then Voight is talking, probably calling reinforcements and an ambulance, but Will's entire attention is focused on his brother. Up close, Jay looks even paler, his lips are definitely blue, and Will can't tell at first glance if he is even still breathing. He tries to ignore how his fingers are shaking as he brings them up and presses them against Jay's throat.

Jay's skin is cold, so horribly cold, and he can't find a pulse, but Will shakes off any thought of what that could mean. Right now, he needs to be a doctor first, not a brother, and if he can't manage to distance himself enough from all the emotions that are clouding his head, Jay might die.

"Doc, I told you I couldn't find a pulse. We need to start CPR."

Not yet. Will knows what he's doing, and he knows that he can't afford to screw this up. This is his brother, the only family he has left, and if Will does the wrong thing now, he might lose him. So he's going to be absolutely sure before he moves Jay. He was in the water, he was out in the cold after that, so this is anything but an ordinary situation.

He presses his fingers more tightly against Jay's throat, eyes fixed on his watch.

_There_. There it is.

Will starts counting.

"Will, we've got to do something!"

Adam's sounds like he's close to moving Will out of the way by force, and though Will knows that it's a reaction born out of concern, it's not helpful right now. Eyes still glued to his watch, Will shifts, unconsciously shielding Jay with his own body.

"You move him now, and you might kill him."

Adam flinches back, but Will barely spares him a glance. Taking his hand off his brother's throat, Will leans in close to check if he's still breathing, ear almost pressed against Jay's chest.

"Not having a pulse is going to kill him, too, man."

"He has a pulse." Will turns around and seeks out Voight, who is standing just a few feet behind them. "You called for an ambulance?"

Voight nods. "They're ten minutes out."

That's way too long. "I need you to patch me through to dispatch."

Voight nods and pulls his radio off his vest. "Dispatch, this is Sergeant Voight. I have a doctor on the scene with additional information on the ambo call for an officer down at Lake Calumet I just radioed in."

"Go for dispatch."

Voight steps up close and hands the radio over to Will.

"This is Doctor Will Halstead with Chicago Med. Patient is a thirty-four year old male who is suffering from a case of severe hypothermia. I have no way to determine core temperature, but duration of exposure might have been up to sixty minutes. He's unconscious and not shivering. Patient is bradycardic, heart rate at 26, breathing is slow and barely detectable. The patient was submerged in water, so lung function might be further compromised. Let Med know that they need to prepare for invasive active core rewarming, and put a rush on that ambulance's ETA if at all possible."

"Understood."

Will hands the radio back and turns back towards Jay, starting to pull at his clothes.

"Adam, I need you to get back to the car. Grab whatever blankets you can find. Check for the rescue blanket from the first aid kit, too. Anything we can use to insulate him from the cold. And leave your jacket and hat."

Adam seems confused, but after a second of hesitation he shrugs out of his thick down jacket, tosses his hat towards Will, and then starts running off. Will turns back to Jay and starts pulling at his shirt.

"Voight, I need your help."

The older man kneels down on Jay's other side. "What do you need?"

"We need to get him out of those wet clothes, and it's important that we move him as little as possible."

"All right." Before Will knows what's happening, he grabs Jay's shirt and pulls until the fabric tears. It's definitely the fastest way to get the shirt off, Will's got to grant him that. However, Voight seems reluctant to reach for Jay and actually remove the remains of his shirt.

"So how much movement is too much movement here?"

Will pulls the cold and soaked fabric off Jay's shoulder, trying not to panic at the feel of his brother simply flopping lifelessly under his ministrations. It's better to force himself back into a doctor's mindset. Maybe then his chest will stop feeling like it's about to burst open from the raw fear that's threatening to choke him.

"With hypothermia, the body shuts off non-vital functions in order to protect the vital organs. You move him too much, you maybe lift an arm to get him out of his shirt, or you shift him from a sitting to a lying position, you could cause cold blood to flow back towards his heart, which can put him in cardiac arrest. So...any movement could potentially be too much, really."

And that's only one of the myriad of things that could possibly go wrong in Jay's body right now, but Voight didn't ask for a medical lecture about hypothermia. They need to keep Jay stable until they get to Med, then he stands a chance. It sounds like such a simple thing, but Will is horrified at the thought that he might not be able to do that. One wrong decision, and he might not be able to keep his brother alive for long enough to get him help.

Will grimaces as he pulls Jay's arm out of the sleeve and sees the open wound that's bleeding sluggishly. "Got a gunshot wound here. Looks like a graze, but it's impossible to tell how much blood he's lost."

He has nothing to wrap the wound with, so unless Adam thinks about bringing the med-kit from the car, there's nothing he can do about it now. He can only hope that the hypothermia will work in their favor and keep the bleeding in check until they can get Jay some help. Once the shirt is off, they manage to work him out of his boots, then his sodden jeans. Being naked in the icy February air is probably not much healthier than being dressed in wet clothes, and Will immediately settles him on Adam's jacket and starts zipping it up as much as he can, but he knows that this isn't going to cut it until the ambulance gets here. This would be so much easier if Jay was lying down, but Will doesn't dare to shift his brother out of the sitting position they found him in, either.

"Hold him steady. We need to get him layered up."

While Voight holds Jay steady by the shoulders, a bit hesitant as if he's holding a bomb that might go off if he makes one wrong move, Will takes off his own jacket and starts stripping out of as many layers as he thinks he can spare.

"What can we do?"

Voight doesn't sound like he's used to idly standing by, but truth be told there's not really much they can actively do, other than stop Jay from going into cardiac arrest. It's not an answer the Sergeant is going to like, though. He doesn't strike Will as the sit-and-wait-type of person. He's spared the need to answer immediately by the sound of footsteps running towards them. Voight's hand immediately goes towards his hip, but after a second he lets the hand sink down again without drawing his gun when he sees it's Adam and Kevin running towards them. Adam's carrying a bundle in his arms which he pushes into Will's arms.

"There was only one blanket in the back of the car, plus two rescue blankets. But I found some of those instant heat packs. Those should help, right?"

Adam seems so proud of himself for thinking of bringing the heat packs that Will doesn't have the heart to disappoint him. So he simply takes everything Adam brought and puts it down on the ground atop his own clothes. Kevin watches the scene in front of him with wide eyes, but then visibly forces himself out of his stupor. "We left Burgess about halfway back to direct the ambulance. Anything else we can do?"

"I need your jackets. Sweaters, too, if you think you can spare them for a little while."

Will has barely finished speaking when all three of the men start shedding layers. He turns back towards his brother and starts wrapping him up. Adam kneels down on Jay's other side and holds him steady by his shoulders as Will wraps one of the jackets around his back. It takes a little while, and more shifting than Will is comfortable with, but they eventually manage to get Jay wrapped up from neck to his feet, with the rescue blankets as the top layer. Adam's hat is pulled over his head, pretty much all that peeks out of the makeshift insulation is his pale face. It's crude, but it will have to do.

Will presses his fingers back against Jay's neck, seeking out his brother's pulse because right now feeling Jay's heartbeat is probably the only thing that's able to keep him sane.

Atwater shuffles on his feet awkardly. "Shouldn't we do something to actually warm him up? Like, you know, chafing his arms or using those heat packs Adam found?"

"No." And seriously, what are they teaching in those first aid classes at the Academy? "Jay is severely hypthermic. Right now, his body can't even maintain its temperature, let alone get it back up on its own."

"All the more reason to help with additional heat, isn't it?"

Will knows that these are Jay's friends, and that they are worried. He also knows that they're the kind of people who want to actively do things instead of standing idly by. But with his brother's life literally on the line, Will can feel that his fuse is getting extremely short. He's a doctor, damn it, he knows what he's doing. And despite the fact that academically, he knows he's doing the right thing, he's doubting every single one of his decisions enough already. He doesn't need to pile anyone else's doubts in his abilities on top of the crushing weight of his own worries. Still, he forces himself to keep the sharpness of his voice in check, eyes fixed on Jay's face and his fingers still pressed against his pulse as he answers.

"Trust me, if this were a case of mild hypothermia, I'd be all over the idea. If that were the case, at least one other person as well as all the heat packs we could find would be wrapped up in there with Jay. He'd be awake and shivering, and probably complaining about being cold, and trust me that right now I'd give anything for that to be the case. But we're so far beyond that point, Kevin, that we can't just McGyver up a way to warm him up again. Jay is severly hypothermic. His temperature dropped to the point where his body is shutting down everything it deems non-vital. Hell, he's unconscious, and I don't even dare to put him down in a prone position like they teach you to do with unconscious people on the first fucking day in med school, because I'm afraid the movement is going to put him into cardiac arrest. So no, heat packs and chafing are not going to cut it. Nothing except extremely invasive medical intervention is going to get the job done. Right now, the only thing we can do is make sure that he doesn't lose any more body heat than he already has, and that his heart doesn't stop beating until he gets to the hospital."

The viciousness and vitriol that's seeping in his own words takes Will by surprise, but once he starts, the words just keep tumbling out beyond his ability to stop them. He knows it's not fair, but neither is the fact that Jay is in this predicament to begin with. Life isn't fucking fair, else Will wouldn't have to keep his fingers pressed against his brother's throat to make sure that his heart doesn't stop beating.

There will be time for apologies later. At least Will hopes there will be. For now, he focuses on Jay's face, desperately searching for any sign that maybe Jay is not as deeply unconscious as he appears to be, that maybe on some level he's aware of what's going on around him. That maybe he might be aware that Will is here.

He isn't, of course. He's unconscious, and he has no idea that his brother is here. Will doesn't want to know what it must have been like for Jay – the pain of getting shot, the terror of ending up in the icy water, the desperation he must have felt once he got out and realized that he wasn't going to make it back to his car. Getting out of the water must have completely exhausted him, and Will doesn't want to imagine the kind of desperation Jay must have felt in his last conscious moments – alone, freezing and knowing that help wasn't going to come because nobody knew where he was.

In the distance, there's the sound of sirens approaching, and Will sags a little in relief. Not long now. Jay only needs to hold on for a little while longer.

Will brings up his free hand, cups Jay's icy cheek and does something he hasn't done in a long time. He prays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Again, please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this took so long. I thought it was done, but while writing it took a weird turn from where I wanted it to be, and so I had to redo it. I upped the final chapter count to 5 because a short conclusion/epilogue-ish chapter is still needed to wrap this up.
> 
> I still have no idea how something that was planned as a 'worried brother story with a bit of case-fic on the side' turned into a study on Will Halstead with far less case fic and involvement of other characters than was initially planned, but I can't thank you all enough for sticking with me so far. The more of the shows I'm watching, the more I itch to write a story with a proper plot involving the whole cast at some point in the future, so there is a goal I'm working towards.
> 
> For now, here you go with the next chapter. Once more, I'm not a doctor. Enjoy.

As a child, Will's best friend was a neighborhood kid called Henry Gallagher. He lived just a few houses down the block, and from age five onward, they were inseparable. When they were eight years old, Henry's little sister was born. An only child until that point, Henry did not take well to it. Will doesn't remember many details, he was only eight years old after all, but what he does remember vividly is Henry's constant complaints about how everything in his life was better before his sister's arrival. It was _the_ topic for one entire summer, during which Henry spent as much time as he could at the Halsteads' house, away from the crying baby.

Looking back as an adult, it really doesn't take a deeper education in psychology to make sense of what was going on back then. Jealousy between siblings, worry about his parents' attention, combined with the fact that an eight year old doesn't really know what to do with a baby to begin with since they don't make for great playmates. Henry's indignation about his new sibling lasted through most of that summer before it slowly tapered off back to normalcy. Will hasn't seen him in about twenty years, but he's pretty sure that over time, Henry and Allison developed a fairly normal relationship for siblings with such a big age difference. After all, nothing is as dramatic as it seems at first glance, especially when you're eight years old.

The one thing Will does remember vividly from that summer is how one afternoon the two of them were sprawled out on the floor in the bedroom Will shared with Jay, eating Popsicles they had badgered Will's mom into giving them, when Henry pointed at Jay's empty bed with his Popsicle-free hand and declared dramatically "Be glad that Jay is not a baby. And that he's a boy. He's little, but at least he can catch a baseball. I bet when Allison's bigger, she'll only want to have tea parties and play with dolls."

Will honestly has no idea if Allison Gallagher ever forced her big brother to have a tea party. But he remembers that moment in time so well because back then he didn't understand what Henry was talking about. Of course, Jay was his little brother, but it was still a completely different thing than the whole Allison debacle.

He and Jay are 22 months apart. Even in Will's earliest memories, back from when he was probably four or five years old, Jay was there, already walking and talking. To him, his little brother was never the screaming baby his parents brought home from the hospital one day. Jay was always just...there. William Halstead was an only child for 22 months, but he doesn't remember any of that. In his life, there's never been a '_before Jay_'.

Jay might have annoyed the hell out of Will at times, always trying to toddle along even when Will wanted to spend time with his friends, but he's always been there. To him, Jay never not existed.

There's a story their mom used to love telling, about how on Will's first day of preschool, Jay threw an absolute fit the moment Will was gone. The way she told it, Jay just cried and kept calling his brother's name all morning long because he simply didn't understand that his brother would be back in a few hours. He thought that Will being gone by the time he got up for breakfast meant that his big brother had just vanished, never to be seen again, and he only calmed down once Will came home from preschool. Their mother loved recounting the story in dramatic detail at all kinds of family events, laughing and teasing, and it always ended with Jay's ears turning red from embarrassment, and Will being smug about it even though neither of them actually remembers the incident.

Right now, though, Will might finally understand how his two year old brother felt at that moment.

For his entire life, Will has been Jay Halstead's big brother. There have been times when they weren't as close as they are now, but for as long as he can remember, Will has been Jay's brother. He can't remember a '_before Jay_', and he can't even imagine an '_after Jay_'. A '_without Jay_'. It's out of the question.

But right now, he's probably as close to losing his brother and finding out what his life after Jay might feel like than he's ever been before. It's only the slow, much too slow heartbeat against his fingertips that proves his brother is still alive, and Will is terrified that at any moment he could possibly lose that one fragile sign that Jay is still connected to life.

The sirens grow increasingly louder, until they stop and Will can hear voices and the sound of a gurney rattling over the ground behind him.

It's flashes from there, like he's losing time.

Two paramedics, both of whom Will knows from the ED, though he can't put a name on either. He's sure he's giving them the rundown on Jay's condition, but next thing he knows someone's pulling him to his feet and he's moved away from where the paramedics are working on Jay, attaching leads, taking readouts and putting him on a gurney.

Will can still feel the phantom beat of his brother's heart against his fingers, but when he looks down, his hands are shaking in the icy winter air.

Adam went to get the car. He must have, because only moments after the ambulance leaves, he pulls up and Will gratefully sinks down into the warmth of the backseat.

Adam's driving is just as nausea-inducing as Voight's was, earlier. Will tries not to look out the window to see just how fast they're speeding along the streets. Instead, he keeps his eyes focused on his hands, trying to recreate the feeling of his brother's heartbeat against his fingertips, wondering if up ahead somewhere, in the ambulance that's speeding towards Chicago Med, that heartbeat might have stopped by now. It kills him that he doesn't _know_.

He shouldn't have let his brother out of his sight.

He should be in that ambulance with him.

Rationally, he knows all the reasons why he couldn't stay with Jay, but rationality went out the window the moment his brother went missing.

Suddenly, the car stops and Adam kills the engine, and Will looks up to find that they've pulled up to the ED. Once that thought penetrates the haze he's in though, it's as if Will can't move fast enough. He's out of the car before Adam and Voight have even undone their seat belts. He gets through the ED waiting room and past the registration desk for walk-ins without a problem, but once the sliding doors open, he can barely take a step into the ED proper before Maggie is there, blocking his path.

"Will, stop!"

He tries to sidestep her, but she's been doing this job for far too long to be fooled by such a simple maneuver. She does not budge, arms outstretched as if ready and willing to block him physically if necessary, despite the fact that Will is about a head taller than she is. Everyone is staring at them, Will knows without looking, but he doesn't care. He needs to get to his brother.

"Don't make me call Security, Will."

"Maggie, I..."

She puts her hands against Will's upper arms and gently pushes him back. "I know. Trust me, I _know_. But I can't let you in there."

Will looks past her, trying to catch a glimpse of what's going on inside of Trauma 1. But someone pulled the curtains and everything is blocked from view. There's absolutely no way to tell what's going inside. For a second, he contemplates simply breaking free of Maggie's hold on him and making a run for it, but as if she knows what he's thinking, her grip on his upper arms tightens.

"He's in good hands, Will. You need to let us take care of Jay now."

Will swallows, but his throat remains dry. "Who's the attending?"

"Doctor Choi." Maggie takes a step towards him and starts to gently push him back towards the doors. "Doctor Rhodes was called in, too. They'll do everything they can, but you know I can't let you go in there."

Will feels himself deflate, sagging like he's a marionette and someone cut his strings. Jay is only a few feet away, but it might as well be miles for all that Will's unable to reach him. Behind him, the doors open again and Voight and Adam step through. Maggie gives them the once over, then immediately starts to gently but firmly shoo all of them back towards the doors.

"Okay, I know you all want to be here, but in my experience one cop in the ED is always followed by half the department, and you know the rules. I can't have you cluttering up my ED, so do me one favor and go to the ICU waiting room on the second floor. It's more private than the waiting room outside, and I promise I'll let you know as soon as there's news."

Will doesn't want to leave. There mere thought makes him feel ill, but he knows that he has no other choice. He knows Maggie, and the iron rule she has over her ED. He'll either leave voluntarily, or she'll make him leave. There's no third option in this scenario in which he'll get to see Jay right now.

If earlier it felt like he was losing time, flashing from one moment to the next, now it feels like every moment is dragging on for far too long. He knows that it usually takes just a few minutes to get up to the ICU, but by the time he sinks down into a chair in the corner of the ICU waiting room, he feels like he's been wandering the hospital for hours.

It's a small waiting room, tucked away in a corner near the entrance. It's currently empty, which is probably why Maggie sent them up here. Well that, and the fact that once Jay makes it out of the ED, this is the place he'll most likely end up.

_If_ he makes it out of the ED.

Will sighs and leans his head back against the wall. When he opens his eyes, he notices that Voight has sat down a few chairs down. Now that they're finally here, unable to do anything but wait for news, there's one question that keeps pushing to the foreground of his mind. Will keeps looking straight at the Sergeant, but Voight seems lost in his own thoughts and doesn't notice.

"What was he even doing out there?"

Voight looks up, as if startled that Will is addressing him.

"Jay?"

"Yes. What was he doing out there in Riverdale, at this time of night, without backup?"

There's an accusation in his tone that he didn't consciously plan on before speaking, but it's obvious that Voight picks up on it. He's not getting defensive, though, instead he sighs and runs a hand over his face.

"We all do it at times, though we're not supposed to. But occasionally you get a call like that, from a CI who's skittish and only wants to meet you alone, or you get some intel that you're not sure of, so you go check it out by yourself to see if it's valid before you call in reinforcements. My best guess is it was something like that. We're looking for a shooter who killed four teenagers in a fight over drugs, and we're stuck on this case."

Voight sighs, like it's his personal slight that their case is getting nowhere. "Seems like Jay spoke to one of his CIs earlier today, and then an unknown number a little while later. My best guess is that the CI put him into touch with someone who might have information on our shooter, that person gave Jay the Riverdale location and he went to check it out before he officially called it in. Not every tip pans out, if he didn't know how credible this informant was, I'm not surprised that he went alone at first. We all do that kind of thing. He probably planned to call reinforcements as soon as he was sure that there was something to it, but things got out of hand before he could call for help. At least that's what it looks like right now."

Adam has been tucked in to the corner of the room for the past minutes, leaning against the vending machine as he spoke softly into his phone, but now he stops talking in the background and sits down on Will's other side with a sigh. "CSU is on the scene, and Atwater and Burgess should be here in a little while. I spoke to Platt, and she's got people on Jay's phone records, contacting his CI and trying to figure out who he put Jay in contact with. She'll let us know as soon as there's progress."

It's not the kind of progress Will is particularly interested in right now, and he's glad when the room settles back into silence after that. It's not that Will doesn't care whether or not the bastard who shot his brother gets caught, but right now, it's so low on his list of priorities that it doesn't even register.

The only progress report he's interested in is the one concerning his brother's health, and he dreads those news almost as much as he needs it.

Time drags on. Will feels like he's been staring at the floor between his feet for hours, but when he looks up and checks the clock on the wall, only a few minutes have passed. It's maddening.

Occasionally, Voight or Adam will make a quick phone call.

At some point, Burgess and Atwater join them in the waiting room. They must have made a run by the precinct because they bring along a change of clothes for Voight and Adam to replace the ones that have probably ended up cut away on the floor of a treatment room in the ED. Will watches dispassionately, wondering if being cold is something he should be worried about. He's not, not really. And he's got clothes in his locker downstairs, so he could go and get them at any time, but that would mean leaving.

Will is not going to leave this room until he has news about his brother.

At some point someone presses a cup of something into his hand. It might be tea, it might be coffee, Will has no idea what because he doesn't take off the lid or drink any of it. But rolling the warm paper cup between his palms is an almost soothing movement.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

He's aware of people checking in occasionally. He's not surprised, the news has to be spreading through the hospital. Goodwin comes by, then Natalie, and a little while later Doctor Charles. Will appreciates it, he really does, he's just not really in a state to have any kind of conversation right now. He appreciates that his colleagues worry about him and want to offer their sympathy and help, but having the same conversation again and again is exhausting. It feels a little too much like he's being handled, and he doesn't like it. He knows the other side of those conversations, and they're never the prelude to good news.

At some point, the drink in his hands grows cold and he puts it down on the floor beside his chair. It won't endear him to the cleaning staff, but getting up and throwing it away seems too daunting a task right now. The room is quiet around them save for the background hum of the light fixtures and the occasional hushed conversation or phone call Jay's team make. They're leaving Will alone in his bubble of solitude, though, and he really appreciates it. He feels like he barely manages to keep his own terror at bay, he's not really sure he can deal with anyone else's on top of it.

So he just keeps staring at the floor and tries to will time into passing more quickly. It doesn't help, it still feels like every second drags on like molasses. It's exhausting. Will is exhausted, but at the same time so wired that it almost feels like any moment he's going to buzz out of his skin.

Also, he's scared. Will can't remember the last time he was this scared. And yet, all he can do is sit here and wait, and if there is one thing Will is not good at it's sitting around and waiting.

The minute hand on the clock on the wall makes another incredibly slow almost full round before there's steps in the corridor outside and Will's heart starts pounding in his chest when he sees Ethan Choi come around the corner and step into the waiting room.

All of a sudden, this is going way too fast. Will is not prepared for this. If it's bad news, he needs more time to get a grip on himself and figure out how he's going to deal with it.

Everyone in the room immediately notices Ethan's presence. All conversation dies down and every eye turns on him, and Will is barely aware that like everyone else, he too is getting up from his seat, as if an upright position is the universal way to receive medical news. Will desperately searches the other doctor's face for any indication as to what kind of news he's about to deliver, but Ethan has never been someone who was was easily readable. Will can't see the answer to his desperate question on his face, but Ethan must know how much Will needs to know, because he immediately turns towards him and gives a small nod.

"He's stable."

There's going to be a qualifier to that statement. Will has been a doctor for far too long to expect otherwise, but right now his knees sag under the weight of his relief. _Stable_. Jay is stable. He can work with that. Stable is good. Stable is a starting point.

Ethan keeps his eyes on Will and gestures at the other occupants of the room. "Do I have your consent to share the details?"

Will nods. "Yeah, sure. Of course."

"Okay." Everyone inches closer, until they form a mishappen half-circle around Ethan, but he keeps his eyes firmly on Will as he speaks. "Honestly, Jay has got to be one of the luckiest patients I've seen in a while. When he came in, his core temperature was down to 78°. Heartbeat was steady, though, so we gave him heparin and put him on a VA ECMO for warming."

Adam holds up a hand. "Hang on a second, a what now?"

"A bypass, basically. We put a tube in his femoral vein to drain the cold blood, run it through a machine to warm it, and put it back in his body through his femoral artery. It's the quickest way to warm up a hypothermic patient." Ethan turns back towards Will. "He went into V-fib once, when we had him almost up to 90°. He reacted well to treatment, though, and his heart went back into normal rhythm after defibrillation. We keep monitoring, but right now his cardiac activity is stable. He's currently at 97° and off the ECMO. We're keeping him on a less invasive warming protocol until he's at 98° and can maintain that temperature on his own. However, he is currently sedated and on a vent."

And there it is, the qualifier to "_he's stable_".

"Why?"

Will is surprised at how rough his own voice sounds.

"His oxygen saturation was borderline even on a full mask and once we got his temperature up further. Because he was submerged and may have aspired water, I wanted to be on the safe side. He's on a course of antibiotics, I want his body to have a night to settle after everything it's been through today. If there's no sign of infection or liquid in the lungs tomorrow morning, we'll extubate and put him on a nasal canula until his saturation is back where it should be. Right now, it's mostly precaution and giving his lungs some rest."

It's still a tube down his brother's throat, and though Will would have probably made the same choice for any patient under his care, the thought of a machine breathing for Jay, prevention or not, is _wrong_. It's simply wrong.

"We also stitched the bullet wound on his arm, but all things considered it was actually the least of his injuries. It was a bad graze, but due to the cold the blood loss was minimal. Of course we can't rule out the risk of infection, but with the antibiotics, I don't think it's an injury that will cause any further grief."

He puts a hand on Will's arm. "I won't give you the usual prognosis speech because I'm under no illusion that you're not going to stick your nose into your brother's file as soon as you can, anyway. But he got lucky. Once his body temperature is stable without intervention and his oxygen saturation is back up, he should be fine, and until then we'll keep a close eye on him."

"Thank you, Ethan."

Ethan nods and squeezes Will's arm once before he takes a step back. "He should be settled now. I know you all want to see him, just keep it short. I can't allow all of you to stay. I'll take you to him."

He turns towards the door, and Will is right at his heels as he leads them out of the waiting room towards the ICU proper. He stops in front of the rooms, and the first thing Will sees through the large glass doors is Connor and a nurse adjusting something on a monitor, and without waiting for further prompting, Will steps into the room.

Connor looks up, and with a nod and a murmured 'thanks' relieves the nurse.

"Ethan gave you the rundown?"

Will nods. "Yeah. Thank you, Connor."

Connor accepts Will's gratitude with a nod, but quickly changes the topic. "He should be sedated for another couple of hours. We'll see about getting the tube removed once his temp is stable and we can rule out an infection. I'll be around, and you know who to call if you need anything."

He squeezes Will's shoulder, nods at the assembled cops in the room and leaves. Will turns and looks at the bed, and up until this moment he hasn't realized how scared he has been of this moment. He sees intubated patients on a daily basis. It's nothing out of the ordinary, but normally it's not people he cares about that he sees like that. Seeing his little brother on that bed, tube sticking out of his mouth connecting him to the machine that's breathing for him, feels like a punch to the gut.

The tube obscures most of Jay's lower face, and even though some of the color has returned to his skin, he's still way too pale. Too many tubes and leads vanish under the sheet and the warming blanket he's covered with, and though Will can name every single one of them and knows they're all necessary and mostly for monitoring rather than for intervention, the sight scares him more than it should. He should be immune to the horror of medical equipment, but apparently when it's connected to his little brother, Will's brain is anything but rational and years of medical experience go right out the window.

He doesn't know for how long he's been staring at the bed when Voight stepping into his line of vision tears him out of his thoughts. There's a concerned frown on the sergeant's face, which probably means that Will was spacing out quite noticeably.

"Listen Will, this", he gestures towards the bed, "is thanks to you. If you hadn't raised the alarm, we probably wouldn't have found him in time. Jay is alive right now because you made us search for him. The hard part is over now, and this looks worse than it is. He'll pull through."

Will laughs, even though half a minute ago he would have thought that impossible. "Did you just try to reassure me about my brother's medical outlook?"

Voight squeezes his shoulder. "It's different when it's family."

Will doesn't really know much about Voight's history other than the few tidbits Jay has told him over the years, but he understands now that the sergeant _gets_ it. He gives him a shaky smile and a nod.

"It is."

"We'll get back to the station, see how far we're on finding that shooter. Let us know if anything changes?"

Will nods. "Yes, of course."

The team slowly files out of the room, and once they're gone, the room suddenly seems eerily quiet. There's the beat of the heart monitor and the hiss off the ventilator, but those are sounds Will is able to compartmentalize. But what's missing is any kind of sound that originates from Jay. He's just lying there, silent on the bed.

With a sigh, Will sinks down in the lone chair that's standing next to the bed. The warming blanket and sheet are covering Jay up to his shoulders, and with a quick look up at the monitor to reassure himself that Jay's temperature and vitals are still steady, he reaches under the blanket and wraps his hand around his brother's forearm.

Jay's skin is warm to the touch, and Will can't help the sob that rises up in his chest and escapes as he lets his head drop forward and closes his eyes.

Jay's skin is warm again. Everything else will fall into place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you all so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, the final chapter. I felt this story needed a little wrap-up, and I hope I managed to end it on a somewhat light-hearted note.
> 
> Thank you so much everyone for sticking with me through my first venture into this fandom. I really hope there will be more stories ahead, this fandom has pulled me in.

After almost two decades of first college, then med school, residency, his stint in Sudan, private practice and the at times insane shifts at the Emergency Department, Will's sleeping patterns are erratic at best, and highly reactive to certain triggers. When he's on call, or doing double shifts, he has trained himself to fall asleep almost immediately whenever the opportunity presents itself, no matter how lumpy or uncomfortable the mattress underneath him is. And once he is asleep, there's certain sounds he can easily ignore, no matter how loud they are. People talking, people walking by, the background hum of activity in a hospital, the sound of hospital equipment like heart monitors or a ventilator.

Also, thanks to adapting his entire sleeping pattern to being a doctor, there's certain sounds that can get Will from fast asleep to wide awake within a second or two. At the very top of that list is the sound of a heart monitor beeping in alarm.

Will immediately tosses off the blanket he doesn't remember putting over himself and jumps up from the chair he's been sleeping in, ignoring the way his back twinges in protest at the sudden movement. He realizes that he's in ICU, though his brain struggles to come up with an explanation as to why. But his eyes immediately go over towards the monitors as the doctor in him takes over, trying to make sense of the readings and the alarms before his memory catches up.

Jay.

It's Jay on the bed. That's why he has been sleeping in a chair beside it, because his little brother almost died last night and there was no way Will was going to leave him alone.

The readings on the monitor are all within normal range, except that Jay's heart rate is spiking, and one look at the bed tells him why. Jay is awake, or at least well on his way to getting there, eyes partly open and trying to move his head from side to side. He's definitely awake enough to notice the breathing tube, and he's fighting it.

"Jay." Will leans in, one hand on top of Jay's head, the other against his cheek as he tries to direct his brother's gaze towards him. "Come on Jay, it's me. Look at me please. I need you to calm down and look at me."

It takes a second or two, but Jay manages to blink some clarity into his gaze, though his eyes remain half-lidded. Slowly, his eyes focus on Will. It's obvious that he has no idea where he is, and there's a lot more fear in his gaze than he would allow himself to show under normal circumstances, when all his guards are up. With a sad smile, Will runs his thumb along his brother's hairline.

"You with me now? You're at Med, Jay. You've been through a rough night, and you're still on a vent to help you breathe. We'll take it out in a moment, but until then, you've got to stop fighting against it, okay?"

Jay doesn't acknowledge Will's words, but it's obvious that he's making an effort to calm himself. Will is tempted to just extubate Jay himself to spare him those few additional moments of having a tube shoved down his throat, but if it was about his patient, he'd be absolutely pissed if someone else came along and made their own medical decisions about them. So he'd rather not agitate the doctor responsible for his brother's treatment.

"Well, seems like someone's awake."

Speaking of which, Connor comes into the room, snapping on gloves as he walks up towards the bed. The lack of urgency in his steps tells Will that while he was asleep, the medical staff must have noticed that Jay was about to come out of sedation, and they probably anticipated that he was going to be aware enough to struggle against the vent sooner rather than later. Connor steps up to the bed, silences the alarm on the monitor with the push of a button and leans over Jay, who is tiredly trying to track the doctor with his eyes.

"Okay Jay, I don't know if you remember your grand entrance from last night, but I'm sure Will already told you that we had to put a vent in. Unfortunately, you weren't getting enough oxygen after your little midnight swim. But, we've been monitoring you all night and so far there's no sign of an infection or secondary drowning, so now that you're no longer sedated, we're going to take it out. It's not going to be the most comfortable thing, but it'll be over quickly."

Jay gives a small nod, and Will takes a step back to let the nurse who has come into the room step up to the bed to assist Connor. However, he does notice how Jay is trying to follow him with his eyes, trying to keep him in his line of sight as the nurse and Connor crowd around him to remove the tube. Will steps around the nurse and up to the head of the bed so that he's not in the nurse's way, and puts a hand on Jay's shoulder. The muscles his hand settles on are taut with tension, which only gets worse as Connor starts the extubation process, and Will gives his brother's shoulder a comforting squeeze.

Getting a tube taking out is never a comfortable process, but Connor is true to his word and makes quick work of it. Still, by the time it's done and Jay is settled with a nasal canula and breathing comfortably on his own, it's obvious that he is exhausted. There's a standard protocol of questions to assess the state of mind and awareness of a previously unconscious person, but Jay manages to answer only two of them before Will feels the muscles under his hand relax as he drifts off again.

Connor straightens up and looks at Will from across the bed, eyebrow quirked.

"Well, at least he knows his name and what year it is. I'd take that as a positive baseline. But I can't let him pass until he hands in all his answers."

Will understands the attempt at levity, but he's too exhausted for this. He runs a hand across his face with a sigh and steps back around the bed towards the chair he spent the night in. Another few minutes of closing his eyes sounds heavenly right now. Connor watches him with a frown.

"Maybe you should head home and get some sleep. It should be a little while before he wakes up properly."

"Nah, I'm good. I'll get some coffee, grab a change of clothes from my locker and then I'll stick around until he's awake."

Connor's expression makes it clear that he doesn't really think highly of this plan, and while Will enjoys their usual verbal sparring, right now he's too tired to justify himself. With a last look to check that Jay is indeed resting comfortably and fast asleep for now, he pats Connor's shoulder and leaves the room.

Eighteen minutes later, he's back beside his brother's bed, wearing a fresh change of clothes and clutching the largest cup of coffee he could find in the ED doctors' lounge. He would have made it back much faster than that, but morale about brewing new pot of coffee once you finished the last one has been pretty low in the ED lately.

And so Will sits and waits.

Three hours later, Jay wakes up again. He's still exhausted, but he manages to stay awake for the entirety of Connor's examination this time, though his eyes are already dropping again by the time everyone is fussing over him. Still, Will counts this as Jay being awake, and he steps outside for a moment to call Voight and let him know.

It doesn't even take a full thirty minutes after that until Jay's entire team is filling up his room, and though moments ago he looked ready and willing to conk out again at a moment's notice, Will watches how his brother struggles to stay both somewhat upright and somewhat awake as they fill him in on everything that happened since last night.

From one moment to the next, it's all about the case again, the damn case that almost got Jay killed in the first place. Jay's not even been properly coherent for a full hour, and already there's nothing more important than his job. Why listen to Will and actually lie down and get some rest to recover from getting shot and almost drowning when instead he can just get updated on work? And all Will can only stand in the back of the room and watch, because it's not as if anyone noticed his presence since the Intelligence Unit took over the room.

But when pretty much the first coherent and unprompted sentence Will hears his brother speak since waking up is "Did you find the shooter?", he needs to get out of there. And at least that way he won't have to listen to his brother already desperate to throw himself back into the thing that almost got him killed. Will needs to get some air, because he suddenly feels like he can't breathe properly in here.

It's Connor who finds him on the roof terrace some time later. Will is leaning against the railing, staring out at the city below and doesn't even notice the other man approach until he steps up beside him. He's got two coffee cups in his hand, and Will gratefully takes the one Connor holds out to him.

"Thanks."

Connor nods and leans against the railing beside him. "Getting some fresh air?"

Will laughs humorlessly. "Something like it. It was getting a bit crowded down there."

"If it's any consolation, when I did my end of shift check with your brother just now, his team had just left."

Will didn't notice before, but Connor is back in his street clothes already, apparently ready to head home.

"Did you check if he tried to sneak out with them? Because I wouldn't put it past him."

He expected to get at least a laugh out of the other doctor, but when Connor remains silent, Will turns to find him with a strange expression on his face, like he doesn't quite know what to make of that statement.

"What? By the time I left, he was already getting briefed on the case again."

"And you don't want him to."

"Connor, he almost died last night. It was pretty much dumb luck that he was found in time, and the first halfway coherent thing I heard him say after he came out of sedation is a question about the damn case that brought him to the hospital in the first place!"

"Okay." Connor nods slowly, in that way he usually does before he's about to disagree with someone. With Will, mostly. "For one, just for the record, from what I heard, it wasn't dumb luck that found your brother, it was you. But also, what did you expect? He's a cop. I obviously don't know Jay as well as you do, but I'm fairly sure he doesn't do this job because of the steady paycheck and the health benefits. Did you honestly expect him to stop being a cop?"

"No. But maybe a little slowing down in the face of his own mortality might have been a nice touch. You know, once he gets released, I think about a week of not worrying to death about him doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it?"

Will knows his reaction is completely over the top, he knows that this is all about him and his feelings and projections and not about Jay, but he can't help himself. He's running on just a few hours of sleep, he feels _raw_ like his emotions have been too close to the surface for too long and right now everything is simply too much. He almost lost Jay last night, and he's nowhere near the point yet where he can simply go back to business as usual. He probably won't be for a while. Connor seems to understand, too, because he seems almost amused by the outburst.

"Okay. I get it. And I doubt that he's doing it deliberately, I'm just not sure you'll be able to get him not to act like a cop. But for now, your brother is down there, wondering where you went."

"Honestly, I'm not even sure he noticed that I'm gone."

Connor shakes his head. "Nah, I wouldn't be too sure about that. He asked where you were when I checked in on him. He seemed a bit forlorn once everyone else was gone. Also, he seems like the kind of patient who is in pain from the CPR but is too stubborn to let his doctors know. Maybe he'll be a bit more honest about it with his brother instead."

That brings a small smile to Will's face. "Then I'd better go back down. What did you tell him where I went?"

Connor points towards the cup in Will's hand. "To get some coffee."

Will sighs and turns towards the doors leading back into the building.

"Thanks, Connor."

"You're welcome. I'd hurry getting downstairs if I were you. Nurse Stephanie wants to get Jay up and mobile at some point this morning, and I'm fairly sure he's not even aware yet that he still has a Foley in. There's probably some entertainment to be found once he does."

Will chuckles and squeezes Connor's shoulder in passing. He's not on duty today, he's definitely going to keep his hands far away from catheters and their removal, but that doesn't mean he can't settle in and watch the show.

He'd say he's earned it after the night he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed, please let me know what you think.

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the story is already written, so updates should be regular once or twice a week. I expect it to be around 4 chapters in all.
> 
> Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed, please let me know what you think.


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